The Central Bank of Nigeria (www.cbn.gov.ng) has injected 323.5 million dollars into the retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales.

This is the apex bank last intervention for November.

The CBN Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, made this known in a statement in Abuja.

Okorafor said the bank also intervened with CNY 17.9 million in the spot and short tenor forwards segment of the inter-bank foreign market.

He explained that the dollars intervention was for requests in the agricultural and raw materials sectors.

Meanwhile the Chinese Yuan was for Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit.

He expressed satisfaction over the stability of the foreign exchange.

He attributed the stability to the sustained intervention by the Bank.

The director gave the assurance that the CBN remained committed to ensuring that all sectors of the forex market continue to enjoy access to foreign exchange.

Especially, during the forthcoming yuletide season.

Meanwhile, N358 was exchanged for a dollar at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange market, while CNY1 exchanged at N48.

External Reserves drops further

The external reserves continued its decline, down 0.3% ($136.4m) to $39.8 billion from $39.9 billion last week.

The prospect for accretion in the reserves remain dim due to low oil prices and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) inflows.

The Naira traded at similar levels all through the week.

The CBN Spot rate opened the week at ₦306.95/$1.00 but closed at ₦307.00/$1.00, depreciating by 5kobo week on week from ₦306.95/$1.00 last week.

At the parallel market, it remained flat, to close at ₦360.00/$1.00 for the week. At the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) FX Window.

The NAFEX rate opened the week at ₦362.30/$1.00 to close at ₦362.81/$1.00 on Friday, appreciating by 17kobo W-o-W.

Activity level in the Investors & Exporters Window waned as total turnover declined 29.8% W-o-W to $879.4 million from $1.3 billion recorded the previous week.

The Central Bank of Nigeria